Bombing Leaves Dozens Killed, Wounded in Baghdad

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030800397.html?hpid=topnews

Bombing Leaves Dozens Killed, Wounded in Baghdad

Meanwhile, U.S. Announces 12,000 Troops to Exit Iraq Over Next Six Months

           

By Anthony Shadid

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, March 8, 2009; 10:56 AM

 

BAGHDAD, March 8 -- A suicide bomber on a motorcycle plowed into a crowd gathered at the entrance of the police academy Sunday, killing 28 and wounding dozens more.

 

Survivors recalled scenes of confusion and carnage in the bombing's aftermath, as ambulances tried to force their way through snarled traffic. Police fired in the air afterward -- either in confusion or, fearing a second bomb, to try to disperse people.

 

A bombing Dec. 1 struck the same academy, killing 15 people, and some survivors of Sunday's bombing expressed anger at how vulnerable they still were. Scores of men had gathered under a bridge near the entrance, in hopes of becoming recruits. Survivors said police had left them waiting in the street for more than two hours without word on possible jobs.

 

"We didn't know what as going on. They told us to come forward, then they pushed us back. Forward then back," said Ali Farraj, who had been trying to get admitted to the academy for three years. "They wouldn't tell us anything."

 

The assailant detonated bombs that were strapped to both his body and the motorcycle. The attack came in a fortified part of Baghdad that is home to the Oil Ministry and other military and government offices. The entrance to the police academy was protected with blast walls, but the crowd, standing about 20 feet away, was exposed to the traffic.

 

The explosion follows a car bombing at a livestock market in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, Thursday that left 12 people dead. Although the number of such attacks had declined significantly and is at its lowest level since 2003 and 2004, in recent weeks, there have been some dramatic attacks against U.S. soldiers and civilians.

 

Also Sunday, U.S. military officials announced that the American forces in Iraq will be trimmed from 14 brigades to 12 by September, a reduction of 12,000 U.S. forces. Four thousand British troops also will depart.

 

The pullback is part of President Obama's plan to remove U.S. combat troops before September 2010 and all troops by the end of 2011.

 

At the police academy in Baghdad, there was little sign of Sunday's attack by the afternoon, save for shattered glass that littered the asphalt. A tattered poster left over from January's municipal elections hung from a bridge pillar. "With the blood of our martyrs, Iraq is liberated," it read.

ad_icon

 

At al-Kindi Hospital, names of 58 wounded were scrawled on a piece of notebook paper attached to the gray marble entrance with surgical tape. Bystanders helped relatives who were illiterate look for the names of their family members.

 

Anger and grief was all Samir Dawai said he felt, as he recovered inside.

 

"I lost a lot of my friends," he said.

 

Special correspondents Qais Mizher and Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.

+++++

Comment: The U.S. military machine just needs to get out of Iraq, quit digging in and bring our troops home so they can work on repairing our own cities and towns. Put them to good use, not part of the fascist killing machine!

Education for Liberation! Join Up!
Peter S. Lopez aka: Peta
Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/THIRD-WORLD-NEWS/

http://www.NetworkAztlan.com